Dave Grohl confesses he ripped off disco drummers on Nirvana's 'Nevermind'

Publish Date
Monday, 5 July 2021, 8:00AM

Nirvana's Nevermind might be one of the most iconic grunge albums of all time, but Dave Grohl was apparently grabbing inspiration from a different genre entirely when he was recording the drum parts.

During an interview with Pharrell Williams on Grohl and his mom's Cradle to Stage docuseries, the rockstar confessed he ripped off those beats from disco drummers (and subsequently blew Pharrell's mind).

“If you listen to Nevermind, the Nirvana record, I pulled so much stuff from The Gap Band and Cameo and Tony Thompson [Chic] on every one of those songs. It’s all disco, that’s all it is," he divulged.

After a stunned Pharrell couldn't believe he'd never put those pieces together, Grohl assured him he wasn't alone. "Nobody makes the connection,” he admitted.

That is, except for Thompson. “He came to my house for a barbecue with somebody,” Grohl recalled. “I was like, ‘Man, I just want to thank you because I owe you so much I’ve been ripping you off my whole life.’ He goes, ‘I know.'”

All of a sudden Foo Fighters' covering the Bee Gees makes way more sense....

See the show clip below.

“We’re going to have the 30-year ‘Nevermind’, but we’re still putting it together," he said. “It’s kind of late! What’s on it? You’ll see, I don’t want to spoil the surprise!”

“The anniversary is really for the fans and what the album means to them," he added. "If it helps people make some sense of the world, that’s great. You have to figure it out for yourself, though.”

This article was first published on iheart.com and is republished here with permission

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